Scottish Executive

Dental Health

Karen Whitefield (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to extend the consultation period on Towards Better Oral Health in Children .

Mrs Mary Mulligan: In response to representations that more time is needed to consider the full range of issues, and extend the opportunity to comment, I am pleased to announce that the consultation period for Towards Better Oral Health in Children is being extended to 28 February 2003.

Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body

Parliamentary Correspondence

Irene McGugan (North-East Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Presiding Officer, with regard to point 7 of the action plan in the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) language policy, whether it is now policy to respond to letters in the language in which they were written and, if so, whether there are any exceptions to doing so and under what circumstances any such exceptions occur.

Irene McGugan (North-East Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Presiding Officer, with regard to point 7 of the action plan in the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) language policy, why letters received by the SPCB in Scots have been replied to in English.

Sir David Steel: The Scottish Parliament welcomes correspondence in any language. The SPCB has decided that when it wishes to reply to correspondence it will normally reply in the language used by the correspondent. When the correspondent uses Scots, the SPCB policy is to reply in English, as this constitutes no barrier to communication and facilitates best use of resources.

Parliamentary Correspondence

Irene McGugan (North-East Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Presiding Officer,  with regard to point 7 of the action plan in the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) language policy, what translation facilities are available to the SPCB to enable responses in Scots.

Sir David Steel: Further to the answers given to questions S1W-32558 and S1W-32559 today, the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) has no contracted services to enable responses in Scots to be produced.

  As the member knows, the SPCB has approved the funding necessary to translate her report on Scotland’s languages into Scots as well as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Gaelic, Punjabi and Urdu. She will also be aware of the extra-contractual arrangements being made to produce the Scots version of that report.